I picked up a bottle of Mt. Pleasant Brewing Company's Freight Train DIPA last week for $3.09 at The Lager Mill. It's been awhile since I've had a new beer from this brewery and I thought I should give their DIPA a try, so lets see how it goes. No visible bottling date, but it just showed up so I think it's fairly fresh. Poured from a shorter brown 12oz bottle into a snifter.

A- The label looks ok with a picture of a couple of old Freight trains that's fitting for the name. It poured a nice orange color that took on more of an amber hue when held to the light with a finger and a half worth of off white head that quickly faded to a thin ring that stayed till the end and it left some spotty lacing behind. This is a nice looking beer, I thought the color was pretty good.

S- The aroma starts off with a slightly higher amount of medium sweetness followed by loads of hops that impart an earthy, spicy, and citrus hop aroma with onion and other summit hop like aromas coming through. Up next comes a noticeable tobacco aroma with some toasted and caramel malt aromas also coming through. This beer had a nice aroma that was full of hops.

T- The taste seems to be similar to the aroma and it starts off with a slightly higher amount of medium sweetness followed by some malts with some toasted, bready, and caramel malt flavors with some sweet malts also coming through. Up next comes a slight tobbacco leaf flavor followed by some hops which impart a earthy, spicy, light citrus hop flavor with the summit like hop flavors seeming to stick out the most. Up next comes a light alcohol flavor that was just slightly warming and on the finish it had a lower amount of high bitterness with a hoppy aftertaste. This was a decent tasting beer but I thought the summit like hop flavors were a little too dominating.

M- Not the smoothest, oily, fairly dry, on the thicker side of being medium bodied with a medium amount of carbonation. The mouthfeel was decent, but it could have been smoother.

Overall I thought this was a decent beer and it's pretty close to being an average example of a DIPA, the bitterness was at about the right level but the hop aspect wasn't as enjoyable as I would have liked the alcohol could have been hidden a little better. This beer didn't have the best drinkability, it wasn't that smooth, it was a little filling, and the taste didn't do the best job at holding my attention, I think one would be enough for me, I have no urge to drink another one in a row. What I like the most about this beer was the appearance and aroma. I thought they were both nice and they worked well with this beer. What I liked the least about this beer was the taste, mouthfeel, and drinkability, they held this beer back from being as good as it could be. I wouldn't buy this beer again when there's so many other better DIPA's available and I wouldn't recommend it to my friends as a good DIPA. I also thought this beer was overpriced at over $3 a bottle. All in all I wasn't too impressed with this beer, it didn't have anything that really made it memorable and it pretty much fell right in the middle of the style, it wasn't bad, but it wasn't that great either. Better luck next time guys, this one just didn't do it for me.

A - Hazy smoke came out the top of the bottle when opened. Pours out a fluffy two finger off white yellowish head. Beer is a hazy dark reddish orange color. This beer is bottle conditioned and has some yeast in the bottom of it. Head has decent retention and produces nice lacing on the glass.

S - The nose on this is hops with pine, orange citrus, floral, and has a nice balance of caramel malt sweetness and some breadiness. Pleasant with no presence of alcohol on this.

T - This one has a sweetness of caramel up front that is followed by a bitter bite that last forever with a flavor of orange, tobacco, pine, and oily hemp. This one is nice and balanced between hops and malts, with no trace of alcohol. Surprising at how easy this drinks for a 8.8% double ipa.

M - Nice soft Full bodied mouthfeel. The bitterness is a little aggressive on the palate. Carbonated nicely for this brew.

O - A rather pleasant Local double IPA I can get my hands on. I wish they dated the bottle and it was not so pricey. This beer drinks nice and easy for a double and is really a pleasant beer that I believe any hop head would be glad to get their hands on. Cheers!

A: Small white head. Quite dark copper in color, almost brown. Could pass for a brown ale actually. Not what I think a DIPA should look like.

S: Soft bready malts, some pine, and a little bit of wet paper smell.

T: Some piney hops, maltiness in the back. Dark fruits can be found in there. No flavors really shine. I really wanted more hop punch out of this DIPA. Maltiness seems pretty high, so more hops would have been fine. No alcohol apparent.

M: Pretty low carbonation, but still feels medium-full.

O: An alright DIPA that could use some work. I feel I was pretty generous on the scoring here.